Press Release – September 24, 2018

FILMCOLUMBIA 2018, OCTOBER 20-28, WILL FEATURE A TOTAL OF 50 FILMS FROM ACCLAIMED DIRECTORS STEVE MCQUEEN, FREDERICK WISEMAN AND ORSON WELLES, AMONG OTHERS, AS WELL AS THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S PALM D‘OR AT CANNES AND MOVIES CELEBRATED AT THE TORONTO, NEW YORK, VENICE, SUNDANCE AND TRIBECA FILM FESTIVALS

FILMCOLUMBIA 2018 WILL HONOR ESTEEMED ACTOR BRIAN COX ON OCTOBER 19-20 WITH FILM SCREENINGS, A Q&A SESSION WITH THE ACTOR AND A SPECIAL BENEFIT RECEPTION

TICKETS TO THE FESTIVAL AND THE BENEFIT GO ON SALE OCTOBER 6 TO CRANDELL THEATRE MEMBERS AND OCTOBER 13 TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

(Chatham, NY — September 24, 2018)—FilmColumbia 2018, Columbia County’s premier annual cultural event, will mark its 19th year of “small town, big movies” in Chatham, NY, this October 20-28. The nine-day festival will present 50 world-class independent and international films, plus post-screening Q&As with acclaimed artists and special tributes and events, all presented by The Crandell Theatre. Screenings will take place at the Crandell and Morris Memorial venues in Chatham.

For the third consecutive year, the festival will present a special tribute to an acclaimed artist with ties to Columbia County. This year’s honoree is Brian Cox, whose award-winning and exceptionally broad range of work has been showcased in some 200 movies and television programs from Braveheart to Rushmore, and includes The Bourne Identity, X-Men 2 and Deadwood. Eight more currently are in production. Cox has channeled every variety of the human species, from King Lear to Hannibal Lecter and has been showered with laurels for his consistently extraordinary performances, including the Laurence Olivier Award and the London Critics Circle Award, among many others. He also was the recipient of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Cox is presently starring in the HBO hit series, Succession. He has been a resident of Columbia County since 1965.

The Film Columbia event will feature screenings of four of his films over two days, October 19-20, all at the Crandell Theatre: The Good Heart, The Escapist, The Carer and L.I.E. The latter screening will be followed by a Q&A with the actor, followed by a FilmColumbia 2018 kick-off party celebrating Cox and benefitting the community programs of the Crandell Theatre. Tickets for the screenings and the party are on sale now for Crandell Theatre members at https://51139.thankyou4caring.org/2018-filmcolumbia-festival-kick-off and will go on sale to the general public in late September. Please note that tickets to the four pre-festival Cox screenings are not included in FilmColumbia 2018 All Film passes.

The geographic and artistic scope of FilmColumbia 2018 and the signature eclecticism and richness of its offerings will be on display via feature and documentary films hailing from nearly 20 countries, as well as the latest releases from award-winning directors Steve McQueen, Frederick Wiseman, Asghar Farhadi and Morgan Neville, and a remarkable collection of offerings ranging from a newly completed film begun by Orson Welles, a drama from a former South Korean Minister of Culture and the directorial debut of actor Paul Dano that was a darling at this year’s Sundance. The festival will also feature standout performances by many of the world’s most lauded actors including Javier Bardem, Juliette Binoche, Penelope Cruz, Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Robert Duvall, Jake Gyllenhaal, Regina Hall, Dennis Hopper, John Huston, Melissa McCarthy, Carey Mulligan, Liam Neeson, Estelle Parsons, Rosamund Pike, Mary Kay Place, Michelle Rodriguez, Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci.

The festival is programmed by Peter Biskind, the executive and co-artistic director of FilmColumbia 2018, and co-artistic director Laurence Kardish. Biskind is an author, film historian, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Esquire, and past executive editor of Premiere magazine. His new book, The Sky is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism, has just been published. Kardish is senior curator emeritus for film and media at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Calliope Nicholas is the managing director of the festival.

On Sunday, October 21, FilmColumbia 2018 will kick off with two highly anticipated films. The Other Side of the Wind will be screened at noon. It stars John Huston as an over-the-hill director trying to make a comeback. A parody of fashionable European directors of the time, the film also was a platform for Welles to mock his enemies, including John Houseman and Pauline Kael. The first day of the festival also showcases Can You Ever Forgive Me? at 8:30 p.m., based on the life of writer Lee Israel, whose career penning glowing profiles of Hollywood stars fell out of favor as the demands of the publishing industry shifted; after going broke, she resorted to illegal practices, all of which makes for a compelling portrait. Melissa McCarthy stars as Israel and is joined by cast mates Jane Curtin, Richard E. Grant and Anna Deavere Smith.

Among other especially noteworthy FilmColumbia 2018 offerings are Shoplifters, this year’s Palm d’Or winner at Cannes that also screened at Toronto and New York. Written and directed by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, it is an emotionally rich drama about a tightly knit, three-generation family of small-time thieves who “adopt” an abandoned and abused young girl. Also of note this year are The Hate U Give, based on a wrenching bestseller and inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, about a teenager living two lives, with Issa Rae, Common and Regina Hall; Widows from Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen, an edge-of-your-seat heist thriller set against the backdrop of politics, passion and blood and featuring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Liam Neeson and Robert Duvall; and Cold War, from Oscar winner and this year’s Best Director at Cannes Pawel Pawlikowski, a love story set in the 1950s and early ‘60s about a relationship compromised by a political system that perverted human emotion and loosely based on the director’s parents’ experience.

As always, FilmColumbia’s annual and highly anticipated Sneak Peek, an unannounced film that traditionally joins the list of Oscar contenders announced four months later, will screen at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 28, at the Crandell. The complete FilmColumbia 2018 lineup is available now at http://www.filmcolumbia.org/.

Online tickets and All Film passes to FilmColumbia 2018 for Crandell Theater members will begin on Saturday, October 6, at 9 a.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sales for the general public will begin on Saturday, October 13, at 9 a.m. For details of ticket sales procedures, please go to http://www.filmcolumbia.org/ before purchasing.

The Crandell Theatre is a volunteer, not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote and develop the appreciation of film to enrich the social, cultural and educational experience of the community, and to renovate and revitalize the Crandell Theatre as a cornerstone of culture in Chatham, NY. The theater is Columbia County’s oldest and largest movie theatre with 534 seats and was built in 1926 by Walter S. Crandell, as a vaudeville house. It features mainstream and independent films daily, seven days a week, and hosts the FilmColumbia festival each year in October. We encourage you to become a member today.